'Orse 2

I spent a few hours today finishing a few more 12mm medieval bits. This time a bunch of kniggits.

I'm relatively happy with them, I must say painting heraldry on tiny figures is a daft idea, I shudder at the thought of doing it at 20mm let alone these mini minis!. However single basing 12mm minis is pretty odd behaviour too so in for a penny an' all that.

The brave band in ranky flanky formation.

 I'm still not sure which rule system I want to use with them. As I mentioned before I have been looking at Oathmark but also one page rules age of fantasy which also look pretty faff free and self contained. I may just go back to my own rules but I suppose I can muse on that while painting.

The whole gang sally forth against a generic and camera shy enemy!. 

I plan to paint a few small retinues that I can make into larger  forces or just use for skirmishes so I need to do some foot sloggers (probably no more than twenty) for this lot then on to the next bunch. Hopefully it will work as a project I can chip away at while building my 10mm multi-based forces.

...'till next time...

'Orse

   As I mentioned in my last post I have been going through my old kallistra 12mm medieval minis in order to strip and repaint them, planning to use them for either some forces for  this

 Or maybe for some other low model count single based system. Oathmark has a rather neat looking way for generating forces and running campaigns so it looks like the favourite for now.  I plan to make a few lords and their attendant retinues that can be combined together to make some colourful forces using a smaller than average number of minis. Here are the first few minis belched from the chez Sprinks painting corner:

They are Kallistra 12mm hobilars from the 100 years wars range painted in my really simple block painting style I used with my 10mm late medieval forces. Just a VERY dark brown undercoat, a white undercoat over that on the bits I want to be bright (making sure to leave some brown round the edge for shading), then a base coat and a single highlight.

I mentioned in my last post that I find painting horses an utter chore, well I have found an efficient way to batch paint them that greatly speeds up the process. Basically I paint them all brown, darkest shade to lightest. I base coat the darkest horses then lighten the brown with pale yellow to make the highlight colour. I then highlight them immediately while still wet to pretend I'm able to do a blending. This highlight colour then becomes the next base coat for the next few horses and so forth. I find I can bash out a fair few nags in one sitting using this method without completely loosing the will to live. Yay!.

I ordered some 10mm flags from pendraken to go with the project. These seem a decent fit, I even had to cut the above flange down to fit!. Anyway, back to the painting table...

...'till next time

Q) When's a Mongol not a Mongol?

  A) When he's a Bastard son of the most black'ed Crow.

Simple really.

 I feel I should clarify. Having finished my 10mm Swiss and Burgundian Ordonnance armies i fancied putting together another force, mainly to give the Swiss steamroller a challenge. So looking through Ancient and Medieval wargaming by Neil Thomas to search for suitable opposition I stumbled soon the Mongol list. Loads of missile horse and nippy lads to stretch the Swiss line and evade their doubleduppikeblocksofdeath However, the spirit of historical accuracy reared its head and I must admit to being pretty sure the forces never actually met (I could be wrong but the map of the world would point to it being unlikely). However I really wanted a speedy force of horse botherers. So the answer seemed simple. Invent a fantasy army!.

Introducing the first batch of units for the Bastard sons of the most black'ed Crow.

I planned to collect some fantasy forces in 10mm eventually so why not build one using the Mongol list as a base?. In my head they are a mash up of modern bikers, waste land barbarians and backwards rednecks. One of many tribes (or are they extended family?) that infest the wastes running contraband, raiding isolated farmsteads, protecting their 'turf' and engaging in all other brands of banditry. 

They are pendraken sarmatians painted with modern day biker gangers in mind, hence the attempt at black leather waist coats and blue jeans on all the models. I painted the bows and banner poles red to contrast the brown horses and also as a nod to early 90's G.W., I've decided the tribe use the natural materials of the wastes so carry bitchwood weapons.

 Another reason I wanted to do an all mounted force is because I have an aversion to painting horses, so doing an army full should be a suitable 'kill or cure' remedy for my issue!. I just need to work out what I'm doing for banners and I should be able to crack on.

 Also I was looking through some old miniatures and came across my 12mm kallistra Medieval armies, which were one of the first painting projects I completed a few years back. I plan to use them to build some retinues for an upcoming project. So I decided to strip and repaint a few to see how they clean up.

 I painted a few horsemen and decided to compare them with some of my earlier attempts.

Hopefully you can tell which ones I have just painted!. The point of this I suppose is that although I'm an averageatbest painter I was surprised how much progress I have made in terms of my painting style and general standard of my attempts. It's easy to feel like you aren't getting anywhere but by comparing these paint jobs I can see I have improved and be pleased with the progress I have managed. Give it a go, you will surprise yourself.

'till next time...

The Battle of Stumpclaw Way

Hello all. I decided to grab a moment to play another test game for my new element based rules. This time i attempted to put the rules under the stress of a really big battle to see what happened. But first:

Their best album....fact!!.

As I was saying I decided to set up a game that would stretch the rule system. No fancy narrative here unfortunately as I set things up and went at it, I used my kallistra 12mm armies which I decided to split along the lines of goodly human forces (red/yellow and blue/white) Vs an unhinged necromancer and his minions and henchfolk (black/yellow and black/white). I have yet to work out either a magic or points system so the necromancer is classed as a regular commander and I have no idea if the forces are actually balanced in any way.  It's also worth noting that I set up the table to be bloody awkward for both sides hence Stumpclaw Way and it's ruined watch tower was placed in such a way to create bottlenecks and force the units to 'clump' to put the rules for large combats with multiple units under strain.

Stumpclaw way by daylight, forces deployed ready for battle. The ultra evil Necromancers lot to the left and the goodly two daps to the right.

 The main evil battle line is formed.

 Spectres and Git Hounds on the right flank.

When horses go bad. Evil horse on the left.

 Captain evil pants himself flanked by his risen minions!.

His opposite number, the high commander of the goodies has a similar but better tactic, he's surrounded by giants!.

 The good Blokes battle line from the rear.

Their right also overloaded with horse riding types.

This is the first massive battle with these rules. One thing I wanted to stretch was the activation mechanics I am using. The rules use command dice to determine the number of activations each player has each turn. The players roll 1d6 per commander and then take turns to use one dice at a time, activating that number of units. Both forces in this battle started with 4 commanders which should show any major issues with the system. I have also been working on some reactions unactivated troops can utilize during the opponent's activation so even if you roll low on your command dice your troops can still react to the enemy. With that in mind I started the game.

 The action begin with hidden scouts from both sides revealing themselves and engaging in an archery duel.

Which was won in short order by the baddies!.

More good guy scouts jumped out of the treeline over on their left, a decision that looked decidedly dodgy when they saw what was heading their way!.

In the centre both sides advanced their archers and had at it as the sound of twanging filled the air.

 On the goodly right the horse advanced, Knights splitting off to cover the flank of the bow line.

The early stages of the battle.

 Despite attempting to fire and fall back the scouts on the good folk left are pounced upon by the Git hounds.

Prompting the sending of fresh troops to make sure the flank would hold.

 On the other flank the charge (and counter charge) was sounded.

The archery battle in the centre was not going the bad guys way as foot troops were ordered forward.

 One of the spectres couldn't resist a quick haunting in the ruined tower.

The necromancer ordered some of his horse to break off from the left through the pass to bolster the main attack.

 Having polished off the scouts the Git hounds faced some stiffer opposition.

The necromancer ordered his probing foot troops into combat to end the enemy ranged threat.

 Leaving one of the commanders exposed!. An opportunity the goodies were keen to exploit.

Some really very evil horse charged in to help their stranded superior.

Both sides commit troops to try to swing the combat on the arrow line.

Which ended badly for the baddies!.

 The Git hounds were also having a hard time over on the right and would soon be routed.

In the center fresh troops were committed.

 Having claimed the flank a unit of good Blokes push on to threaten the enemy rear.

The situation as it stands.

 The bad folk send in the main attack.

 Which successfully breaks the enemy archers.

However the good guys send in their best in response.

Which has an immediate impact, turning the enemy troops.

 The one bright spot for the not nice force is the breaking of the enemy cavalry over on the left. The horse on horse action had been in the Ballance all game but due to the narrow space had forced a string of really boring stalemates.

With the situation looking grim the chief evil dooer charged along with his reserves.

 Which ended in a bad guy flavoured collapse.

Come on guys we can take 'em....guys?.....

This seemed like a good place to call it. Aside from a few cavalry units over on the right the evil lot were done as an effective fighting force. The whole game lasted about 5 turns and took an hour and a half to play to a conclusion so I'm taking that as a win. I still need to play another big game as neither side lost any commanders until really late in the day so I will need to try it with less command dice for one side. All told it was lots of fun and gave a real 'fantasy battle' feel which is good. You never know, I may be ready to type these up soon......



....'till next time.....